The Bedouins met the North Africans along a road running thru a hilly desert farming district a long scrubby ridge ran down the middle of the field seperating two large farming hamlet, one on the extreme left and the other in about the middle of the Bedouin line. Our right featured another long ridge across the field. It was very rugged on our side and got gentler but more broken by small groves and scrubby patches. A small oasis was nestled in a bowl in the ridge a bit to our right. All-in-all, it was not a very favorable field for cavalry but it would have to do.

We deployed all our infantry on the right on the steep hill; our light foot on the lower slopes backed up by our Bedouin foot on the higher ground. Astride the road between this hill and the nearby farming hamlet we deployed one group of lancers supported by a pair of heavy horse archers. A similar group of horse deployed on the ridge between the two farming hamlets. Another group of lancers and our 2 elephants were placed behind the first farming hamlet as our reserve. A few light lancers were deployed in a screen on both wings.

The North Africans deployed a mixed collection of infantry across the central ridge. A large group of cavalry was deployed on their left and a smaller group of horse on their right. A few light foot screened the left and right supported by a couple of light horse. A few spearmen huddled at the rear as a reserve of sorts.

Our plan was to push our foot forward on our right thru the broken ground. Our right horse would swing out wide around the oasis while our reserve horse and elephants would press on in support of the infantry advance to deal with the opposing massed cavalry. Our left wing would try to work it's way around the enemy right.

Our left wing probe drove the opposing horse back, but failed to land a knockout punch and got tangled up and cut up with the survivors retiring back after a long bitter running fight.

Our right wing thrust was slowed by the broken ground, but our combination of elephants and lancers proved too much and we destroyed or scattered all of the enemy horse, then wheeled to deal with their infantry. Our outnumbered Bedouin foot formed a line in the groves and broken ground on the right ridge to delay the advancing North Africans while our lancers and elephants regrouped and swung around to take them in the flank and rear. Even though flanked, they fought on stoically and survived long enough for the elephants and lancers to envelope and break enough of the enemy foot to collapse their army's morale.

It's a great example of thinking outside the box. It isn't an obvious winning army, but it is in fact a battle winner - though only in the right hands. In less skilled hands, it might easily be massacred.

The predominantly billiard table map meant that, after seeing off the Breton foot, an exhausting tramp across the flat for the Romans to catch the nimble and expertly moved Breton light troops and cavalry.
Only just completed in time - just a move or two left. Something of an epic game and hard luck to DzonVejn for not quite holding on to move 24.

A stream made for a long standoff between the Arabs' mostly foot army and the Byzantine lancers, with the Arabs' more numerous archers inflicting more losses than they received. Both sides probed the other's lines, leading to a melee in the streambed that was going the Byzantines' way, but the earlier losses inflicted by missile fire triggered a Byzantine rout just before the Arab line gave way.